Halfway home. The Mavericks reached the 41-game mark of the regular season and have 41 left to go. They are on pace for 48 wins. “I said before the season that I felt we were a better team than last year,” Dirk Nowitzki said. “We’re back to a playoff level where we want to be. It’s going to be a race all the way to the end, just like the West always is.” The Mavericks have every reason to be optimistic. They have given away a handful of games that they led by 17 or more points. They haven’t had one of their top players, Devin Harris, yet and that should provide a long-term boost when he returns. This is a team that still has the flair for confounding fans and frustrating itself. But it’s hard not to look at this team and see that it will be solidly in the playoff picture the rest of the way.

Speaking of Devin Harris. He’ll likely make his season debut on Saturday night, barring some sort of setback between now and then. Don’t expect miracles right away. It’s going to take awhile for the 6-3 guard to knock off the rust and regain total trust in his rebuilt left foot. But it will be good for everybody in the organization to see him in uniform. And with Jose Calderon getting dinged up Friday in Phoenix, it will certainly help rookie Shane Larkin relax a little.

Larkin looking like a keeper. He had 18 points, five assists, two steals and just two turnovers in 26 minutes. “It’s the most minutes I’ve played since college,” Larkin said. He made the most of them after Calderon banged knees with somebody in the first half and just couldn’t move like he wanted to in the second. The 5-11 Larkin, who has been shooting the 3-point shot well since regaining confidence in his surgically repaired right ankle, hit 2-of-3 against the Suns and the Mavericks were plus-nine when Larkin was on the floor. Overall, a terrific night that should do wonders for the kid’s confidence. As Dirk said, “the little guy was phenomenal.”

Now comes the hard part. The Mavericks hustled out of Phoenix and landed in Dallas at 2 a.m. That means they had enough time to get a decent amount of rest, but it’s going to be a hard back-to-back situation against Portland Saturday at AAC. Maybe it will help that the Blazers won at San Antonio Friday night. They may have a little human nature creep in and ease off the gas pedal a little bit. But it shapes up as one of those games that could be very entertaining.

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